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Email DElivEry ratEs abovE 95%: 16 “Must Dos” to Make It Happen

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email delivery rateS above 95%:

16 “must Dos” to make it Happen

introduction

as an email marketer, you face many challenges to building a strong and profitable email program. these include:

n Crowded inboxesn securing your share of budgets and staffingn Creating compelling contentn testing and continuous improvementn Implementing personalized and segmented campaignsn Monitoring and analyzing program performancen Increasing revenue and return-on-investment to demonstrate email’s value as a marketing channel

What’s missing? Deliverability—getting the highest percentage of your email messages delivered correctly to subscribers’ inboxes instead of bouncing back to you or getting filtered or blocked by an Internet service provider. Without strong deliverability rates, your email marketing program is simply not operating efficiently or effectively. and yet, Marketsherpa reports that three out of 10 marketers don’t even take the time to determine their delivery rates.1

Certainly there are myriad obstacles your email must circumvent in order to land in recipients’ inboxes. But looked at from the proper perspective, deliverability is an opportunity rather than an insurmountable challenge. Doing what it takes to get more email delivered correctly will strengthen every aspect of your email program, from subscriber acquisition to content and conversions, and will ultimately yield better RoI and revenue.

this silverpop white paper lays out the 16 Deliverability “Must Dos” that will give you measurable improvement in the number of messages de-livered correctly to subscribers’ inboxes. You’ll also find an explanation of basic concepts, a resource section and links to more information at the silverpop Web site and from other deliverability authorities.

deliverability Foundations

the high cost of missing the inbox

poor deliverability costs your company significant revenue from lost potential sales and from the money wasted to create content, build lists and send messages that never reach their intended audiences.

Low deliverability stunts your email program’s growth or can even choke it off if you can’t get messages delivered to your key destinations. and poor deliverability practices may result in all or a majority of your emails being blocked—not just a few.

Certainly, some email messages will always go astray. email servers get overloaded and queue up messages or return them for later attempts, subscribers abandon mailboxes without unsubscribing or changing their addresses, or they mistakenly click the “this Is spam” button in their email clients.

However, if you follow the best practices and “must dos” outlined in this guide, you can achieve regular delivery rates of 95 percent or higher—substantially greater than average delivery rates of 83 percent that most email marketers achieve.2

there is no deliverability silver bullet

to achieve high deliverability rates requires involvement and cooperation from a number of departments and personnel, including It, your designer/programmer, copywriter, email service provider if you use one, database and list managers, people on the front lines collecting email addresses, marketing and executive management.

Fundamentally, however, deliverability is the responsibility of the marketing team or whoever is driving the email program. no email service provider can guarantee you a certain delivery rate. as you will see in the following guide, nearly all the factors driving delivery are in the control of the email



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team. Your esp and outside deliverability services providers can offer tools and guidance, but it is up to marketers to follow best practices and continuously optimize their program.

the 16 email deliverability “must dos”

It may feel like an uphill battle when trying to get all your emails to all of your recipients, but there are some simple steps that, when taken to-gether, can produce dramatic improvements to your deliverability rates. With an estimated 20 percent of permission-based email messages being blocked,3 it’s worth the effort to institute the following 16 steps toward better deliverability.

1. minimize spam complaints

as the top component of Isps’ reputation and filtering algorithms, reducing or minimizing your spam complaint rate is deliverability job number one.

While Isps are not completely transparent and change their thresholds frequently, it is known that america online, for example, currently recom-mends keeping spam complaints below one per 1,000 messages. so ignoring other factors, more than 10 complaints received on a mailing to 10,000 will likely cause your email to be filtered or blocked.

Following are some best practices to help minimize spam complaints:

• Onlysendtopermission-basedlists.• Considermovingtoconfirmedopt-inifyourspamcomplaintratesareconsistentlyhigh.• Encouragenewsubscriberstoaddyouremailaddresstotheiraddressbook.• Avoidoveraggressivelanguageandspammysounding-lookingcontentsuchasverylargefonts,bigredletters—anythingthatlooksunpro-

fessional and could be confused with a true spam email.• Don’tover-email.Sticktoafrequencythatyoupromisedduringtheopt-inprocessorisconsistentwithwhatmostrecipientswouldexpect.• Don’tsendunexpectedemail.Ifsubscribersoptedintoreceiveyour“Tips&Tricks”newsletter,don’tsuddenlystartsendingthemyourpure

product promotion emails, unless they clearly requested them.• Chooseyoursender/fromnamecarefully.Useyourmostrecognizableandexpectedbrandaspartofthename.• Avoidexclamationpointsandaggressivesubjectlines.Whilethisapproachmightgetafewmorepeopletoopenyouremail,itcanalsoprompt

many to let you know their views of your messaging by hitting the spam button. • Provideapreferenceupdatepagetomakeiteasyforsubscriberstochangetheirpreferences,emailaddress,format,etc.• Makeitextremelyeasytounsubscribe.• Ifyourspamcomplaintratesareveryhigh,includeanunsubscribelinkatthetopofyourmessage,inadditiontothefooter.• Beverytransparentandincludeasmuchinformationasappropriateintheadministrativeareaoftheemail,including:thesubscriber’semail

address, date they opted in and how they were added to the list (point-of-purchase card, product registration, white paper download form, sweepstakes entry, etc.).

2. manage expectations at the beginning of the subscriber relationship

Maximizing your deliverability begins before you send out your first message and continues throughout the relationship. Be explicit about your email program and privacy level at the opt-in.



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Begin by obtaining explicit approval to send email marketing messages. never use a pre-checked opt-in box on your registration page or order form. according to the 2003 u.s. Can-spaM act, a pre-checked box does not constitute explicit permission, or “affirmative consent.”

Following are some additional tactics to get the relationship off on the right foot to help ensure consistent deliverability.

• State expectations up front and confirm them. tell subscribers what kind of messages you send and how often you send them. Include a screenshot or link to a sample email. If you allow subscribers to set their own preferences, confirm these on a thank-you page or in a follow-up email.

• Ask subscribers to add your email address to their contact lists or address books. these per-sonal white lists are your fastest route to the inbox. Concentrate your efforts during the opt-in process and welcome messages, as fewer people are likely to do so later during your regular mailings.

• Link to your privacy policy. state your privacy policy in plain language on the sign-up page. Don’t bury it inside a long list of terms and conditions. the more explicit your privacy policy, the more trust-worthy you appear to subscribers and Isps.

3. validate email addresses at opt-in

Confirmed opt-in and double opt-in processes allow you to weed out spelling mistakes in either the user’s name or the domain name before they have a chance to damage your deliverability. However, that doesn’t help you acquire an address of someone who really does want your emails but committed a typing mistake. add validation code to your opt-in forms that detects domain misspellings, incomplete addresses and com-mon mistakes and then alerts the user to correct it immediately.

4. optimize design and Html coding for delivery and rendering

spam filters will assess points against your email if they detect faulty or nonstandard code, spammy content and a variety of other factors. If your message exceeds a specific point score (typically four points), the filter will route your message to the junk folder, block it or delay delivery. You can learn more about the type and variety of email message elements that many corporations, Isps and spam filters evaluate at spamassassin.org (http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests.html).

emails that are improperly coded or designed will render poorly (particularly when images are blocked) and make your messages look untrustworthy and spam-like, increasing the chance of a spam complaint or unsubscribe.

If you have access to email message-checking tools such as those from pivotal Veracity or Return path, use them to check your templates and each message before distribution. alternative steps you can take include:

• RunmessagesthroughanHTMLvalidatorandspamcontentchecker.• MakesureyourtemplateandmessagesareW3Ccompliant.• ViewmessagesondifferentplatformsandWebbrowsers.• ViewmessagesinvariousemailclientsandemailproviderinterfacessuchasthosefromAOL,Yahoo!Mail,Hotmail/LiveMailandGmail.• Checkhowmessagesrenderinpreviewpanesandwithimagesturnedoff.

You may find it necessary to redesign your message templates from the ground up. Consider programming the email by hand or using a “clean” HtML editor. some of the more popular design programs will add “dirty” code to your emails that can cause rendering issues.

Remember to design for the preview pane, putting important information such as calls-to-action and text navigation at the top of your emails. also,



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with an estimated 50 percent of consumers now having images blocked by default, you should reduce your reliance on images and use more HtML background colors, font colors/sizes and alt tags. avoid single or multiple large issues if at all possible.

other design elements that can help improve deliverability include:

• Becarefulwithtablesandusefixedwidths.Improperlycoded tables will expand when images are blocked and turn your email into a visual disaster.

• Includeanadministrationareathatprovidesinformationand links for everything a subscriber needs to manage their relationship.

• Removescriptsandforms.ManyISPsandemailclientswilleitherremovescriptsfromyourmessage,blockthemfromworkingortheysimplywon’t work correctly. For example, a commonly reported problem is forms in Hotmail not passing the data through to a Web site.

• Testeachmessageinarenderingandmessage-checkertoolbeforeeachdistribution.

5. Use a dedicated iP address

Many esps and companies may share a single Ip address across multiple senders or divisions of the company. Because Isps monitor mail streams by Ip address, sharing Ips is generally not a good idea. When you share an Ip address with other senders and they deploy a bad practice—inten-tionally or by accident—your messages will be filtered or blocked by an Isp along with theirs. similarly, various block lists may add the shared Ip to their blacklists.

Dedicated Ips cost more than shared Ips, but the additional costs ensure that you are in control of your sender reputation and are not affected by a “bad apple” client of your esp.

However, you may want to use a shared Ip address if your email volume is extremely low and/or very sporadic. this is because the Isps now factor in the consistency of both volume and frequency of mailings from an Ip. If they see inconsistency on an Ip address, Isps are likely to filter mail streams more aggressively.

6. build your reputation gradually on a new iP address

When the Isps look at the mail stream coming from your new Ip address, your previous sender reputation (good or bad) is not associated with it. as a result, most Isps now prefer that senders “build” their reputation gradually on a new Ip address—typically over a period of three to four weeks.

While each Isp is different, a general rule of thumb is to start sending a few thousand messages a day and then double the amount every four to seven days. once the Isp has monitored 50,000-100,000 or so emails over the period, you will have established your initial reputation. at that point, you should be able to scale up to higher volumes.

During the ramp-up period, Isps will be looking at several factors including:

• Numberofconcurrentconnectionsattemptedfromonemailserver• Numberofunknownusers(hardbounces)attempted• Numberofoldandinactive(disabledfor12-plusmonths)accountsbeingattempted• Numberofspamcomplaintsfromrecipients

7. authenticate your messages with Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Sender id and domain Keys identified mail (dKim)

authentication, certification and reputation are three parts of the puzzle that helps Isps determine whether your emails should be delivered, filtered to junk mail or blocked outright. authentication involves placing a line of code in your Dns record (and DkIM also uses an encryption key). It tells an incoming email server you are authorized to send email from your Ip address or, with DkIM, your domain. It is a widely accepted method of determining that a message is being sent by a “good actor” rather than filtering a suspected “bad actor.”

What Happens to your Emails

While Isps and corporate filters all handle suspected spam messages differ-ently, they generally are handled one of four ways:

• Blockitandreturntosenderwithamessageexplainingtheblock• Blockitwithoutreturningornotifyingthesender• Routetothejunkfolder,oftenadding[SPAM]orsimilarnoticetothe

subject line• Returnittoyouwitharequesttoremovethesubscriberifheorshe

clicked the spam button via a feedback loop



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Currently it is a must to authenticate using spF and sender ID protocols, as many of the major Isps are checking for these records. Later in 2008, it is expected that many will also check for DkIM.

typically, an Isp will put a correctly authenticated email through a less stringent filtering process. But authentication does not guarantee that your email will not be filtered or blocked. You must still minimize spam complaints and bounces and follow other deliverability best practices.

If you haven’t yet authenticated your emails, work with your It department and esp to implement spF and sender ID records as soon as possible. once these are established, then move to implement the more complex DkIM.

8. Set internal ground rules for list additions

explain to different groups and departments within your company what is and is not acceptable permission and list building approaches. all it takes is one questionable list uploaded to your email database and your entire program may be blocked for a few days.

For example, without an explicit opt-in process, addresses from trade shows and business cards should generally be sent a follow-up email requesting the recipient opt-in (excluding true one-to-one emails). similarly, addresses obtained through a company acquisition or merger and sent from the acquiring brand should be re-opted in (for commercial messages).

Work with your in-house or external legal counsel to establish the appropriate permission policies and gain management support. then communi-cate these policies with all appropriate internal and external stakeholders (agencies, list brokers, etc.) and educate them on the implications of poor permission practices. Finally, as appropriate limit the ability to upload lists into the central database to the core email team or designated personnel.

9. Perform regular list hygiene

a “dirty email” list is guaranteed to cause delivery problems, and is why good list hygiene is a cornerstone of high delivery rates. elements of a dirty list may include addresses that:

• Havepreviouslyhardbounced• Generatedaspamcomplaint• Unsubscribedbutarestillintheactivedatabase• Areoldandhaveneverbeenemailedto• Wereobtainedwithoutpermissionorhavenorelationshipwithyourcompany• Arelikelyspam-trapaddresses• Areoutdateddomains• Havenotopenedorclickedinafewyears

Dirty mailing lists hurt your deliverability because Isps will filter or block senders who mail repeatedly to “bad” addresses, either based on their own observations or via reports from real-time block lists (RBLs) who list names and Ip addresses from senders they suspect of spamming.

Action Steps:

A. remove all hard-bouncing email addresses immediately. these are addresses that are “permanent failures” because they are invalid addresses or because the mailbox doesn’t exist anymore. Most esps will automatically move hard-bounced addresses into an “inactive” or suppressed list.

B. remove any address that generates a spam complaint. a spam complaint is simply an alternative to hitting the un-subscribe link for most recipients. their expectation is that they will never receive another email from you. If you are using an esp, it should have feedback loops set up with all of the major Isps, and typically all spam complaint addresses are then immediately removed or suppressed from your list.



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C. Don’t overdo bounce retries. Most email marketing systems are set to retry bounces from one to three times over the course of about three days. Many systems will also not retry at all to certain Isps such as aoL. However, many companies insist on retrying bounces several times, which can lead to blocking problems. the challenge is a simple fact of time and math. Isps will monitor your Ip mail stream during a window of 24 hours, for example. If during a particular time window the only emails being sent are your bounce retries, to the Isp it looks like you are sending to 100 percent bad addresses. such a ratio of bad addresses may then cause your regular mailings to be filtered or blocked. Work with your esp to determine what is the right retry strategy for your situation.

D. reactivate inactive addresses. While not completely transparent, the Isps have begun confirming or alluding to penaliz-ing mailers for sending to inactive addresses. While you aren’t likely to be blocked for having a high percentage of inactive addresses, your overall reputation score will almost certainly be negatively affected. to the Isps, a high rate of inactive subscribers is a sign of poor list hygiene or irrelevant content.

to minimize impact in this area it is important to regularly identify your inactive subscribers (e.g., anyone who has not opened or clicked in two years) and implement programs to re-engage them. at the extreme, you’ll want to attempt to re-opt them in to your program and remove anyone who doesn’t. at minimum, you’ll want to alter your messaging, frequency, offers, etc. in an attempt to reactivate those who have disengaged.

e. remove or suppress “institutional” addresses. suppression means both removing these addresses and moving them to a separate do-not-email database so that you can’t remail to them, even accidentally. Remailing can lead to blacklisting and Isp blocks. It also violates the u.s. Can-spaM law against mailing to an unsubscribed address.

Likely offenders are institutional email addresses such as “[email protected],” “[email protected],” “[email protected]” and any address with “spam” in it, such as “[email protected]” or “[email protected].”

10. Comply with iSP message throttling limits

While only a problem for very high-volume senders, it is important that marketers understand and comply with each Isp’s message throttling limits. as a first step, understand how many email addresses are in your database at each of the major Isps and corporate domains. secondly, if you use an esp, work with its deliverability team to develop an approach for achieving your volume distribution goals without exceeding the limits at Isps and corporate domains.

11. manage and monitor your sender reputation

While content issues can still cause delivery problems, your sender reputation has become the primary check that Isps use when determining how to treat your email. as such, it is critical that you maintain and monitor your sender reputation.

Following are some reputation monitoring resources:

• Feedback loops. a service offered by many Isps to notify a sender when users are reporting their email as spam. each Isp has a threshold that it watches for in regard to excessive complaints from their users. Isps offering feedback loops includeAOL,Yahoo!,Hotmail/LiveMail,Outblaze,Road Runner, united online and usa.net. Most esps provide the information as abuse or spam complaints within the message reports.

•reputation service providers. Firms including Habeas, pivotal Veracity and Return path offer reputation-based scoring tools and services.

•microsoft’s Smart network Data Services. provides senders a summary of how their Ip ad-dresses look to Hotmail/LiveMail. Factors include number of messages attempted, number of mes-



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sages accepted for delivery, filter status, spam traps hit and spam complaints.

• Lashback. a Can-spaM compliance monitor and resolu-tion service that helps track third-party affiliates and your company’s marketing messages for a variety of legal and contractual violations.

12. Use recognizable sender names and ex-plicit subject lines

use your company or brand name in the friendly “from” or “sender” line—never rely simply on the reply-to email address. Make sure the sender/from name is one that is immediately recognizable by recipients and not the name of an unknown editor or cutesy newsletter name, for example. and since some email services and clients may only display the “from” email address, make sure you use a simple and easily recognizable address rather than some random combination of numbers and [email protected]@retailer.com.

avoid overly aggressive subject lines. What might work in direct mail may get you a high spam complaint rate in email. avoid all-caps, exclamation points and anything that has the appear-ance of being spammy. When appropriate, consider including branding in the subject line to increase immediate recognition by the recipient.

13. Send only relevant, wanted content

While this sounds a little like your mom telling you to wash your hands before sitting down to dinner, it is a fundamental principle that many marketers ignore at their own peril. never assume your subscribers will want to receive different content or newsletters just because they already subscribe to one of your email programs. While the u.s. Can-spaM act does not prohibit sending unsolicited commercial emails, it’s now a fact of life that spam complaints, Isp filtering systems and third-party blacklists have made sending non-permission-based emails a losing proposition.

sending content or promotions that are outside of what most subscribers would expect is likely to drive your spam complaint rate higher. If you are a publisher or association, for example, and send offers or promotions from third-party advertisers, make sure those emails are branded differently and subscribers are able to easily opt in or opt out of these emails separately.

Finally, sending personally relevant content is the best recipe for deliverability success. Four out of 10 consumers say they clicked the “Report spam” button because the content they received was irrelevant.4 With overloaded inboxes and multiple channels competing for their attention, and despite opting in to your list, consumers will report your emails as spam if they simply become irrelevant over time.

mapping the Deliverability Ecosystem

email deliverability is a system of individual but interdependent components. actions by one component can benefit or disrupt the entire ecosystem.

• Subscribers: this group has the ultimate say over what goes into their inboxes. they give and withdraw permission, report your messages as spam to their Isps or third-party reporting services, act on your mail-ings or ignore them.

• Senders: You are here. When you observe best practices, from opt-in through messaging to opt-out and beyond, you will experience greater response from recipients and less interference from subscribers and Isps.

• ISPs: Internet service providers decide whether to pass your mail through to the inbox, filter it to the junk folder or block it as spam.

• Corporate networks: a business-to-business component that lays another set of filters and servers over the standard email delivery route and can be more restrictive than Isp filters.

• eSPs: email service providers can offer tools, resources and expert assistance to improve delivery. their infrastructure, including shared versus dedicated Ip addresses, can hinder or help you consistently reach the inbox.

•Other senders: Both bad and good behavior by other senders affects you. You don’t want to use the same tactics as spammers; at the same time, you should try to emulate the best practices of the clear market winners.

•White lists/blacklists: these third-party entities can either help you get into the inbox (white lists) or block you completely (blacklists), depending on your permission, data collection and sending practices.

• Spam filters: Isps, corporate networks, recipients and esps use spam filters to detect likely indicators of spam. even if your message is permission-based, you could set off filters and get blocked or filtered as spam.

• Authentication protocols: authentication verifies your identity and right to send email from your Ip address. It can enhance your sender reputation and help distinguish your email from spam or fraudulent email.

•reputation services: these third-party services monitor how Isps, blacklist services and other email components judge you as a sender and, when you follow best practices, they vouch for you as a trusted sender.

•Deliverability monitors: also third-party services, these monitor your actual inbox performance. using lists of seed addresses created spe-cifically to track your placement, they report how many seed addresses got delivered to the inbox, routed to the junk folder or blocked.

• email clients: the applications subscribers use to read your email af-fect deliverability if they disable images or show only a portion of your message in the preview pane. Most email clients also give users an easy way to report spam with a link or “report as spam” button in the interface.



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to avoid becoming a nuisance to your subscribers, take these steps:

• Showasampleofyouremailontheopt-inpagesorecipi-ents can see what they are subscribing too in advance.

• Capturepreferences—fromformattodemographicsandinterests—on sign-up so you can send targeted emails.

• Explainthevaluepropositionandwhatsubscriberswillreceive on the opt-in page and reinforce it in the confir-mation and initial welcome email.

• Developanddeployafullwelcomeprogramthatonboardssubscribers for the first few weeks or month with your best content and information.

• Developalifecycleemailprogram,withemailssentbasedon each recipient’s activities and stages of their relation-ship with you.

• Useapreferencecentertomakeiteasyforsubscriberstomodify their profile and preferences.

• Surveysubscribers,particularlythosewhohavebecomeless active, on what you can do to improve the value of your email program.

14. message frequency: not too much, not too little

Because email has such high potential RoI, many marketers and their internal stakeholders fall victim to the approach of, “If it works, let’s send more emails.” While this approach has proven quite successful for the direct mail industry for decades, because consumers and Isps control the inbox, crossing the frequency line can wreak havoc on your deliverability rates.

according to a JupiterResearch study, the second most-cited reason (40 percent) consumers unsubscribe is because “emails are sent too often.” and because 32 percent don’t trust the unsubscribe link and 26 percent unsubscribe by clicking the “report spam” button, this means your over- mailing approach leads directly to an increase in spam complaints.

Here are some approaches to frequency to maximize delivery, particularly if you are a retailer or e-commerce company:

• Moveawayfroma“batchandblast”approachandsendtriggerandlifecyclebasedemailsbasedoncustomerpreferencesandactions.• Offerfrequencyoptionsduringtheopt-inprocessandasanalternativetounsubscribing.• Monitorsubscriberactivityandconsidermailinglesstotheinactive/lessactivesubscriberswhoaremostlikelytofileaspamcomplaint.• Mailatleastoncepermonth.Ifyoumailtooinfrequently,manysubscriberswillforgettheyoptedinandhitthespamcomplaintbuttontoget

rid of your emails quickly. Consistent mailing of lower volumes is also preferred by Isps over infrequent large volume mailings.• Monitoryourunsubscribeandcomplaintratesclosely.Whentheseratesbegintoincreasesignificantly,you’veprobablycrossedtheaccept-

able frequency point and should cut back.

15. make it easy to unsubscribe

unsubscribes can be a good thing. While this might sound counterintuitive, the alternative in the email world is a recipient pressing the spam but-ton. the major Isps and email providers control the inbox environment and have positioned the spam buttons front and center, making them easier to find than your unsubscribe link.

Here are some tips for optimizing the unsubscribe process:

• Don’thidetheunsubscribelink.Don’tusetinyorgrayed-outfonts,orburyitsomewhereintheemailwhereitishardtofind.

three Categories of spam Filters

1. Content/keyword filters: these unsophisticated filters were among the first devised to trap unwanted email and are programmed to search inbound messages for prohibited words or phrases. they also frequently caught legitimate email that included the banned words or phrases. they can be deployed at the Isp, corporate network and end-user level.

2. Boolean filters: the next generation up from content filters. these run each message through a series of tests designed to predict how likely it could be spam.

a Boolean filter looks for spammy words, phrases, formats, coding mistakes, image size compared to content size and total message size and assigns points every time it finds a match. a message that amasses too many points can get blocked, filtered or returned with the errors listed.

3. Server-level filters: these are most often found on Isp or corporate mail servers. they combine the spam-detecting content or Boolean-style filters with reputation check and a blacklist of banned sending domains that are suspected of spamming.



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• Placetheunsubscribelinkclearlyinyoursubscribeadminis-tration area of your email. If you have a high spam complaint rate, you should consider placing an unsubscribe link at the top of your emails.

• Becarefulofeuphemisms.Peoplelookingtooptoutofyouremails will typically have little patience if you make them read and decipher long, convoluted sentences. If you offer change of email address, preference updates, change of format, etc., clearly label those links as well.

• Createacombinationpreferencecenter/unsubscribepage.the unsubscribe function should be simple and obvious, but also make it easy to change preferences on this page.

• Finally,includeashortsurveyaskingwhyrecipientsareunsubscribing and include a comments box. actively monitor these responses and move to make changes in your program based on the feedback being received.

16. monitor delivery-related reports and metrics

actively monitor your delivery rates for each distribution and look for problem areas and positive or negative trends. Is your spam complaint rate rising a sign of over-mailing? Did you have a spike in hard bounces—a result of someone uploading an old list?

Here are some delivery-related processes and metrics to monitor:

• Hardbounces• Spamcomplaints• Unsubscribes• Blacklistsyouhavebeenaddedto• InboxdeliveryratebyISP(usingathird-partyservicesuchasPivotalVeracity)

Where possible, examine these metrics by:

• ISPordomain• Typesofemailsincludingwelcome,confirmation,transactional,announcements/alerts,newsletters,etc.• Timingincludingseasons,holidays,timeofdayorweek• Sourceofemailaddressincludingopt-inform,tradeshow,point-of-purchase,sweepstakes,whitepaperdownload,etc.• Opt-inapproach.WerethereincentivessuchasafreeiPoddrawingorjustastraightopt-in?• Contentstyleandtone.Didyougetmoreaggressivewithyoursubjectlinesandcallstoaction?• Frequencypattern.Didyougofromfourorfivetimesamonthtomorethan10duringtheholidayperiod?• Permissionlevel.Didyouchangeyourpermissionapproachfromanuncheckedtopre-checkedboxormovefromsingleorconfirmedto

double opt-in?

While this may sound like a lot of effort to undertake, if you are having deliverability challenges, uncovering the specific reasons behind having high bounce, spam complaint and unsubscribe rates is critical to resolving your challenges.

FootNoteS:

1. “EmailMarketingBenchmarkGuide2008,”MarketingSherpa,2008 2. “email Marketing Benchmark survey,” Marketingsherpa, nov. 2007 3. “Calling Doctor Deliverability,” Return path, Feb. 2006 4. “special Report: spam Complainers survey,” Marketingsherpa and Q Interactive, sept.-nov. 2007



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appendiceslinks to industry resources

1. email Deliverability Associations/Organizations:

• EmailSenderandProviderCoalition(ESPC)- http://www.espcoalition.org

• AuthenticationandOnlineTrustOrganization(AOTA)- http://www.aotalliance.org

• MessagingandAnti-AbuseWorkingGroup(MAAWG)- http://www.maawg.org

2. ISP Postmaster Pages:

• AOL: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/•mSn/Hotmail: http://postmaster.msn.com/services.aspx• Yahoo!: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/•gmail: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/bulk_mail.html• Juno/netzero/unitedOnline: http://www.unitedonline.net/postmaster/•roadrunner: http://security.rr.com/spam.htm

3. ISP White Lists:

• Yahoo!: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/bulk.html• AOL: http://postmaster.aol.com/tools/whitelist_guides.html•Hotmail/Windows Live mail: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/postmaster/default.mspx

4. Silverpop:

•Best Practices: http://www.silverpop.com/practices/index.html•What We Offer: http://www.silverpop.com/whatweoffer/index.html

deliverability Glossary

Attachment: a file included in an email message. attachments in bulk email messages often trigger spam filters and should either not be used or used sparingly.

Authentication: this procedure involves placing a line of code in your Dns record, which verifies you as an authorized sender from your Ip address. the major forms of authentication, each of which uses a different set of codes, are spF, senderID and DkIM (Domainkeys Identified Mail).

Blacklist: (also referred to as blocklist) a list of domains or Ip addresses that a blacklist operator has deemed to be sending spam messages and thus should be blocked. (also see White list)

Bounce (hard and soft): a message that is returned to the server that sent it. a bounced email is usually classified as either a “hard bounce,” which indicates a permanent failure due to a non-existent address or a blocking condition by the receiver, or a “soft bounce,” indicating that there is a temporary failure due to a full mailbox or an unavailable server.

Bounce rate: total number of failed (bounced) messages divided by total number of emails sent.

Certification/Accreditation: this is third-party approval of your email practices that Isps might use to decide how to handle your email. third-party approvalcancomefromcompaniessuchasHabeas,TrustEandGoodmailthatexamineyourentireemailprogramanddeterminewhetheryoumeet their standards. Many Isps allow certified/accredited email to pass through filters and attach an icon, viewable in the inbox, designed to boost subscriber trust.

Commercial email message: any email message “the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” source: Commerce Committee Report, Can-spaM act of 2003



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Confirmed Opt In: In a confirmed opt-in process, you follow up an email registration immediately with an email message confirming that the person has opted in. no action is required on the new subscriber’s part, as with double opt-in. However confirming the opt-in allows the person to unsubscribe if the message is in error, and it enables you to verify the validity of the email address before it can damage your deliverability.

Consent: the senate Commerce Committee Report for the Can-spaM act indicates that “affirmative consent” requires some active choice or selection by the recipient. Remaining passive, such as not unchecking a pre-checked box or other default Web form, is not sufficient. source: Com-merce Committee Report, Can-spaM act of 2003

Co-registration: the practice of giving visitors on other sites the option of signing up for your newsletter.

Domain name: a unique address identifying a site on the Internet. the domain name follows the “@” symbol in an email address and is followed by “.com,” “.net,” “.org” or other designations.

DnS Server: a computer used to look up domain names to find their Ip addresses.

Double Opt In: a two-step process that allows a user to join your mailing list. the user must initially sign up, and then respond to a follow-up email (confirming by replying or clicking a link) prior to receiving any further email.

email Client: a program used to send, retrieve, and read email. examples are outlook or eudora.

Feedback Loop: the process by which the email client (Isp) of the receiver forwards complaints of emails marked as spam by recipients for removal by the sender. usually treated by senders as an unsubscribe request. (also see spam Complaint)

IP Address: a unique 32-bit number used to identify computers on the Internet. example: 216.91.56.178.

ISP: Internet service provider (e.g., aoL or earthlink)

mIme: Multi-purpose Internet Mail extensions. an extension of the original email protocol that allows email to contain non-text messages, such as pictures or files.

multipart: a content-type that allows email to include multiple kinds of content, such as text, HtML and binary attachments.

Opt In: the action a person takes when he or she actively and explicitly requests, by email or other means, to receive email communications.

Opt Out: (also called unsubscribe) the action a person takes when he or she chooses not to receive email communications. In the united states, the Can-spaM act requires the use of an email or Web-based mechanism by which people can ask to be removed reliably from an email list.

reputation: a scoring system used by Isps, spam filtering systems and others to rate your reputation as a sender. Reputation scoring algorithms used by Isps are not transparent and are different among receivers, but most are based on some combination of spam complaint ratios, frequency, bounce rates, spam trap hits and other factors.

Sender Line: (also called the “from” line) the section of the inbox that shows who sent an email.

Spam Complaint: the receipt of a complaint from a recipient who has identified the message as spam. (also see Feedback Loop)

Transactional/relationship email message: an email message that is primarily intended to facilitate, complete or confirm a commercial transac-tion that the recipient has previously agreed to enter in with the sender. source: Commerce Committee Report, Can-spaM act of 2003

W3C Compliant: the designation for a Web page or email template that was created and coded so that it complies with standards established by the World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org/

White list: a list of “good senders” designated by an Isp or inbox provider, increasing chances that messages will be placed in the inbox versus being blocked or routed to junk or spam folders.

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